Transition US National Gathering - Programming

Pre-Gathering Intensives

The event kicks off on Thursday, July 27, with two days of intensive workshops digging deep into some of the critical areas of Transition: permaculture intensives, effectively launching new groups, the work of Inner Transition. PLEASE NOTE: tickets to the intensive workshops are an additional fee, and will be sold separately from the tickets to the main gathering.

Thursday Evening Pre-Event Film Screening

On Thursday evening participants will join with community members to view the award-winning French film “TOMORROW”, an upbeat environmental documentary directed and narrated (in English) by actress Melanie Laurent (inglorious Basterds)and activist Cyril Dion.

In their journey to find some of the most inspiring initiatives, they’ve spent a great time filming The Transition movement. See the reviews in theNew York Timesand theLA Times.

The film shows how bottom-up community action can have a meaningful impact by offering constructive solutions to act on a local level. So far, no other documentary has gone down this road... (Now a book is available too - see below for more details).

The main gathering begins Friday evening, July 28, with keynote speaker and Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow, Richard Heinberg. A journalist and educator who has written extensively on energy, economics, and ecological issues, Heinberg has played a key role in communicating the need for transitioning to a new way of living and doing business.

Richard's presentation entitled "Transition in the Age of Denial" will be on the species survival-level problem (the need to transition society away from its reliance on depleting, climate-changing fossil fuels) which national officials not only deny but are determined to make it harder to solve. Political resistance is one path forward, but is unlikely to succeed soon. Another essential response: local, grassroots action to build resilience. The best transition work is already being done at the community level, and it is at the community level where those affected by policy have the greatest ability to shape it. It’s also where it may still be possible to work around political stereotypes to identify common values.

The Main Gathering

Saturday and Sunday feature a powerful line-up of more than 40 concurrent workshops, with ample networking opportunities designed to broaden, deepen, and scale up our movement. Saturday evening features a keynote speaker and spoken word and music performance that will touch your heart and bring you to your feet. Below is a list of the confirmed workshops (more detail and schedule to follow shortly).